


Wych

by welcometoyourworld



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: A Thousand And One Original Characters, Bisexual Endeavour Morse, Canon-Typical Violence, Case Fic, Cold Case - Freeform, Endeavour Morse Has ADHD, Gen, Kidnapping, Paganism, historical fiction - Freeform, some descriptions of blood, the last two tags aren't important to the plot but they're important to ME, Éirinn go Brách
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 21:34:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27293515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/welcometoyourworld/pseuds/welcometoyourworld
Summary: A young woman is reported missing by her older brother, but that’s an unfortunately ordinary occurrence in Oxford. When graffiti evoking an obscure cold case appears on the windows of her workplace, Morse and the Cowley Road crew begin to fear the worst. Has an anonymous killer returned after 25 years to claim another life?*UPDATES PAUSED FOR NOW*I'll be working on "Graft" and will get back to this when that is finished. Thank you for your patience! :-)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	1. Hocus Pocus

“It’s coming, I know it is.”

This particular Friday evening in the Cowley Road station is blissfully slow. The sun is finally setting on another unseasonably warm, humid day, bringing some relief to the floor of the CID and painting the surrounding buildings in brilliant golds and oranges. Fans are humming on desks about the bullpen, shuffling papers with every pass, and the clacking of typewriters compete with the low voices giving sports commentary on the wireless in Thursday’s office.

Morse has only had paperwork to do for the last two days. As slow as it’s been, Bright hasn’t let anyone leave early this week; so for lack of anything better to do, Morse has been spellchecking everyone else’s reports. He’d already checked his own twice over. He’d normally find the idle chit-chat around him irritating, but today it complements his banal busywork just fine. If anything, it makes him feel like time is going far faster than it really is.

“I can _feel_ it. Any moment now.” 

“Not so sure about that, matey.”

Fancy, in shirtsleeves like everyone else, is perched on one of the windowsills, paperwork long since forgotten, his head halfway out of the building as he stares up at the greying sky. A stiff breeze rattles some dry leaves on the road down below.

“No, I _swear_ , Jim. Can’t you tell?”

Morse looks up from where he’s filled in a misuse of the word ‘ _there’_ —what should have been written is ‘ _their’_ —and finds Strange grinning at his own desk. He winks at Morse, then huffs and shakes his head.

“Hm, I dunno George,” he frowns, “ _I_ didn’t hear anything about rain.”

“Wha–Jim, just look at the sky. Of course it’s going to–” he’s cut off by a faint roll of thunder, and he breaks into a wicked grin. “ _Hear that?_ ”

Strange shakes his head again, pretending to read from the file in his hand. “Just a lorry.”

A few men across the room stifle laughs. Morse is staring intently at the report in front of him, face set like stone, but no longer able to concentrate on any of the words.

“Look, I can see a raindrop on the roof, right there,” Fancy insists, sticking his arm all the way out the window and bracing himself against the frame.

“Just your imagination, kid.”

“What is?” Trewlove has appeared, her own uniform jacket and hat left hanging elsewhere, holding some folders against her front.

“George reckons it’s going to rain. I say he’s full of it.”

“Shirl, help me out here and tell Jim it’s gonna rain–” his plea is cut off by another low roll of thunder, this time louder and centered right over the street outside. “ _See?_ ”

“Sounds like a lorry to me.”

Strange and the other men dissolve into laughter, and even Morse can’t hide the twitch at the corner of his mouth, as Fancy dejectedly rolls his eyes and gazes back out the window. Trewlove drops her folders in a tray by the glass divider and settles herself against the filing cabinet next to Morse’s desk.

“Got much in?” she asks.

“Hardly,” he huffs. “Killing time like everyone else.”

“Likewise. Though you still seem to be doing a fair bit more than everyone else.” She looks pointedly at Fancy, still staring intently out the window. Morse shrugs. “Earlier I was on the phone with the editor at the _Oxford Weekly Gossip_ –”

“Again?”

“–and he seemed very surprised to hear that one of his writers had misquoted me at the McCallister hearing.”

“Sounds like just about everything is news to him. Here’s hoping he actually issues a correction this time.”

“I won’t hold my breath. Anyway, there’s a pub doing a sort of Hallowe’en themed do next week. A bunch of us are all going.”

“Hallowe’en?” 

“Mhmm.”

Morse picks up his mug and sips at the last of his afternoon tea. “Isn’t that more of an American thing?”

“I hear it’s quite popular in Scotland, actually. You should come,” she continues. “I think it’ll be fun.”

He swirls the remaining dregs around the bottom. “I’ll think about it.”

“Alright,” she says simply, inspecting the cuff of her sleeve.

“You’re not going to let me say no, are you?”

Trewlove answers him with a polite smile.

The golden glow of the lamps around the room is overtaken by a white flash, and a crack of thunder trailing it by a split second rattles the walls. The room goes stiflingly quiet, and then the rain finally comes down in rivers, bringing with it a cool, crisp wind.

“ _YES!_ ” Fancy cries, shooting up from the windowsill with fists clenched high above his head. “I _told_ you,” he adds, rounding on Strange. “What did I tell you?”

“Didn’t doubt you for a second, George.”

“You’re a rotten liar, Jim.” He points back to the windows. “See that? That’s intuition, that is.”

“What’re you all prattling on about?” Thursday comes into view over Morse’s shoulder, half-heartedly shifting one of the reports around on his desk before addressing the room. “Have you finally run out of work to do?”

“It’s George’s intuition, sir,” Strange says.

“He’s predicted the rain, you see,” Trewlove adds.

“Is that so? Well, that’s a relief.”

Fancy cocks his head. “What is, sir?”

“We’ve a detective constable with the same intuitive powers as my joints.”

Morse, god help him, snorts into his fist, and that’s enough to send the men into hysterics. Fancy shakes his head, admitting defeat, and strikes up conversation with Strange.

Thursday turns and addresses Trewlove over Morse’s desk. “How was your call with that poor excuse for a newspaper, constable?”

“The _Weekly Gossip_ , sir. It went as well as I expected it would.”

The conversations start blending together as Morse’s thoughts drift along with his eyes to watch the raindrops race each other down the windows. A few years ago, he would have found his way to the break room by now to escape the drivel of small talk. Though in all fairness, this particular blend of people didn’t exist together a few years ago.

Not that the earlier days of his career at Cowley Road were unfavorable. Strange and Thursday had both been there from the very start; and once he and Jakes had stopped butting heads every chance they got, he too had become good company.

Jakes would have liked Fancy—well, Morse likes to believe he would have—and been much better suited to the role of sergeant-shows-the-constable-the-ins-and-outs-of-the-job. Things could have been very different, indeed. Though they also could have been much worse.

He’s not entirely sure what he gained when he earned his stripes, other than proverbial custody of CID’s resident wise-guy. Fancy’s at least taken a liking to Strange, whose no-nonsense attitude should keep him straight. And Morse always trusts in Trewlove’s judgments of character. The tough times are tough, and the late nights quite long, but he can at least find solace in knowing that this particular group never takes the job for granted.

He finds he doesn’t mind the small talk much at all, these days.

Then, over the soft din of the humming fans, shuffling papers and low voices chatting away at the end of this long Friday evening, someone disturbs the balance.

“Sir? Inspector Thursday?”

The whole of CID quiets and turns to face the uniform, Sergeant Hill, standing at the front of the room. He’s accompanied by a shorter man who is soaked through to the bone, rain water dripping off his denim jacket and pooling on the wooden floor, and holding his folded arms tightly to his chest.

“This man would like to report a missing person.”

* * *

Fancy digs clean towels out of the locker room and Trewlove makes him a fresh cup of tea while Strange and Morse clear a space for him to sit by Morse’s desk. The hour passes from late afternoon to early evening, and the other end of the room was quietly undergoing the transition to the night shift. When he’s sitting in a spare chair, he lets out a shuddering breath he seemed to be holding since he walked into the station.

“I don’t know where my sister is,” he finally says in a round and airy Irish accent. 

His eyes, wide with worry, are a clear, icy blue, and his jet-black hair is drying in soft waves. “We were supposed to eat dinner together last night but she never showed, and I haven’t been able to get in touch with her all day today.” He still has a towel draped around his shoulders and he’s gripping the steaming teacup between both his hands like if he’s not careful, it will disappear as well. 

“Alright, there. First, what’s your name?” Strange asks, lifting his pen to take notes.

“ _T-eye-g,_ ” the man pronounces with a long-practiced patience. Morse can sympathize. Strange can’t hide the way his eyebrows shoot up and his hand stalls over the notebook.

“Could you spell that?”

“T-A-D-H-G. Tadhg Flynn. Shall I spell Flynn for you?”

“I’ll manage. Your sister’s name?”

“ _Shin-ayd_. S-I-N-E-fada-A-D. Sinéad Flynn.”

“Mr. Flynn, when did you last see your sister?” Morse asks.

“I haven’t seen her since last week. But she doesn’t live with me, she lives with our cousin. But I rang her last night and then went round this morning and she hasn’t seen her since yesterday morning. I rang her work too, Pat’s Pastries on [whatever] street, and she didn’t show up for her shift this morning.”

“Has Sinéad ever done this before?”

Tadhg shakes his head. “If she has to cancel she’ll usually call.”

“Usually?”

Tadhg frowns. “She’s gone to a friend’s once or twice and forgotten to say so, but never for this long. She would’ve called by now. She’s not—she’s not a reckless girl. She wouldn’t miss work. I even went round to some of her friends’ places today but they haven’t heard from her, either.”

“How old is she? And do you have a photograph of her?”

“She’s twenty-one,” he says, reaching into his trousers and pulling out a simple bi-fold wallet. “About five foot, skinny wee thing. She’s on the left, with the dark hair.” 

He slides a color photo across the table. Three grinning faces smile up at Morse and Strange. Tadhg, squeezed between his sister and another woman in a pub booth. Sinéad could be his twin—black hair draped in long waves over her shoulders, bright eyes, with the same round face and strong nose. The woman on the right has russet-brown hair that curls in loose ringlets, a longer face covered in freckles, but the same piercing eyes.

“Is this your cousin?” Strange asks, pointing at the other woman, and Tadhg nods. “What’s her name?” 

“ _Or-la_ ,” he sighs, rubbing his hand over his brow, and then seeing that Strange’s hand is hovering over the page again, spells out, “O-fada-R-L-A-I-T-H. Órlaith MacNamara.”

“Does Órlaith remember what Sinéad was wearing?”

“She said she just had a red jumper and a yellow skirt with black and red stripes. And ehm, brown boots.”

“Any other defining features? Birthmarks, scars?” 

He shakes his head, a few more droplets falling from his hair, then his mouth forms a hard line and he swallows. Perhaps he realizes asking after defining features is more for identifying a corpse than a living woman.

“Please, she’s my baby sister. You have to find her,” he pleads.

This is the part of every missing person’s report that Morse hates the most.

“Well Mr. Flynn,” he starts, “we’ll share her description with our weekend-duty officers. For now, you should go home and rest. We’ll keep you updated on any developments.”

“What? No, you have to—aren’t you going to start an investigation?”

“Protocol dictates we wait forty-eight hours after a person is last seen before beginning an official investigation,” Morse replies robotically. He has said it dozens of times to dozens of worried parents, siblings, spouses and even roommates. Usually the missing person turns up after a day or two, and Morse gets to sign off on and file a very short report. Though that doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of flared tempers and tears to mitigate during the inbetween.

“Protocol? _Jesus_ , who knows what’s happened to her! She doesn’t even have her mac with her! What if she’s hurt? She’ll freeze to death!”

“Mr. Flynn,” Strange starts calmly, laying the pen down on the desk, “there’s nothing we can do in an official capacity before the forty-eight hour mark–”

“Bull _shit_ there’s nothing you can do,” Tadhg grits out. “You can put some bloody boys in blue to good use and start looking for her.”

“What Sergeant Strange means is we as detectives can’t use our resources at this time,” Morse says, working to keep his voice as firm but fair as he can. “Patrols will be keeping a look out for her starting this evening. If she doesn’t resurface by this time tomorrow, you can come back to the station and we’ll open a case.”

“You’re really not going to do anything?”

Morse wants to explain that uniforms doing their job isn’t “not doing anything,” but Strange beats him to the punch.

“A lot of missing persons reports come through here, Mr. Flynn, and most turn up on their own alright. Based on what you’ve said, she’s not a high-risk missing person. Your sister is probably just–”

Tadhg rolls his eyes, muttering “ _As ucht Dé_ ,” under his breath. He stands and lets the towel fall from his shoulders. “Thanks for nothin’,” he adds, setting the undrunk tea down and snatching back the photograph. “I’ll find her myself.” 

He storms off, nearly clipping Fancy’s shoulder on the way toward the stairwell.

Fancy points at him with eyebrows raised to Morse and Strange in a silent question: _Should I go after him?_

Morse shakes his head gently, and Strange flips his notepad closed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CHARACTERS:  
> • Sinéad Flynn: missing person  
> • Tadhg Flynn: Sinéad's brother  
> • Órlaith MacNamara: Sinéad's cousin and housemate
> 
> Hello!! They say to write what you know, so here is me being as Irish as possible and also indulging in everything autumn. Light a candle, pour yourself a cuppa, grab your favorite sweater, and let's get into it.
> 
> TIL: “Órla” is a name that means “golden princess,” while “orla” means “vomit.” And that’s why the síneadh fada/long accent is so important in Irish! It’s also the only accent mark in the language.


	2. Something Wicked This Way Comes

It’s clear the weather has changed for good when Morse steps outside in the morning.

Any lingering humidity was swept away by the crisp breeze blowing through the neighborhood. The storm had also plastered the sidewalks and streets with leaves in bright reds, golds and browns. Today the sky is a brilliant blue, and though the sun is warm on his face, patches of cottony clouds pass overhead and cast cold shadows down below.

Morse shivers as he picks up the newspaper and hurries back inside.

Strange is already at the stovetop preparing his weekend fry. “Mornin’,” he says. “Didn’t know if you’re hungry, but there’s extra beans and toast here.”

It smells like a kitchen should on a Saturday morning, and the sounds of eggs and sausage and tomatoes sizzling together remind Morse that he has definitely not eaten since yesterday’s slapdash breakfast of cheese on bread. Strange catches him staring at the frying pan.

“There’s extra of everything else, too. Be ready in a minute.”

“Right. I’ll put on a brew.”

Strange starts plating the food. “I told you about dinner and drinks with George and Shirley tonight, right?”

“You did not.”

“Oh. Right. Well, George and Shirley invited us to dinner and drinks tonight.”

"Right."

"Will you come?"

Morse hadn't planned on doing much of anything today, let alone going out to socialize. But as morning turns to afternoon, and afternoon to evening, the sun casting ever longer shadows through the front windows, Morse finds himself following Strange out of the house to meet their friends in town.

They connect on a busy street corner and Fancy immediately begins heaping praise upon the dinner special this new pub supposedly offers as they merge into the foot traffic.

“What’s all this, then?” Strange nods toward a small crowd of people gathered outside a shop up the street. There is an ebb and flow of people, some standing in place, other passersby slowing down to see what is the matter and speeding back up once they’ve had their fill.

“That’s PC Branch,” Trewlove says, “standing in front of the window.”

“And there’s Miss Frazil,” Fancy adds. Her tan trench coat cuts an impressive silhouette against the brick building, but Morse recognizes her by her posture—shoulders hunched forward as she takes notes while standing.

The presence of a uniform and a reporter in the same place, in Morse’s experience, is never a good sign. And yet the four of them, unable to ignore such a potent mixture, stray from their pub route and cross the street.

Strange catches sight of it first. “Blimey.”

Morse has to crane his neck to see, but wordlessly agrees.

In the window is a display of ornately decorated cakes and desserts, colorful pastries, and breads tied in delicate plaits. But someone has graffitied the window, covering the pastel lettering underneath with thick black paint strokes that read:

**Who put Bella down the Wych Elm—Bagley Wood**

“Now that’s not your everyday prank,” Strange declares.

“My thoughts exactly, sergeant.” Miss Frazil joins their circle, pen now tucked behind her ear and notebook resting under her arm. “I see Cowley’s finest have arrived. Ominous, isn’t it? Got any clue what it means?”

“Wait a second—wait, I’ve heard this before,” Fancy says, running a hand through his hair. “I–I know this.” He presses his knuckles to his mouth as his eyes dart back and forth, reading and rereading the phrase as if the answers are hidden in plain sight.

“C’mon, George, where’s that intuition of yours?” Strange chides.

Fancy waves him off. “Shut it, I’m thinking.”

“I’m going to talk to Branch,” Trewlove says, breaking off in the PC’s direction.

“Morse? You’re the puzzle man,” Frazil says. “Is it a line from some long-forgotten Shakespeare play? An obscure Italian opera? A clue from the most insufferable crossword constructor?”

Morse huffs out a laugh. “Sorry, Miss Frazil, but I’ve no idea what it is.”

He really doesn’t have the first idea what the graffiti means, though there’s something familiar about the scene that Morse can’t quite focus on. The words are completely foreign to him—except for Bagley Wood, of course—but he’s sure there’s something else that’s going right over his head.

It’s infuriating.

Trewlove slips back through the crowd with an unsatisfied expression, settling herself next to Miss Frazil. “According to Branch, it means nothing to the owner of the shop. Says it was here when he opened this morning at six.”

“Why hasn’t it been washed off?” Strange asks.

“The owner’s been waiting for a “proper detective” to make an appearance,” she smirks. “He’d like to open an investigation so he can sue for damages.”

Fancy suddenly claps his hands together with an, “Oh! Oh, I’ve got it! It’s from a story my uncle told me when I was a kid. Scared the living hell out of me.” He glances around to make sure he has everyone’s undivided attention.

“A bunch of boys during the war were messing about in the woods, looking for eggs, when they started climbing up this old tree. A wych elm, right? One of them thinks he’s found this giant egg inside the trunk, so he goes to pull it out—but it’s actually a human skull. Turns out there was an entire skeleton in there. Bella in the wych elm. To get me and my cousins to behave, my uncle would threaten to stuff us in a tree, too, and that one day some boys would find our skulls.”

“George, that’s a horrible story,” Trewlove frowns. Morse tries to force the macabre image out of his head as quickly as possible.

“Why’s someone tagging a shop with nonsense from a scary story?” Strange adds. “Some Hallowe’en prank?”

“What—no, no, it’s a true story,” Fancy urges. Morse can’t stop the dry, derisive snort he lets out.

“No, I swear it really happened—in Birmingham, during the war. Police could never identify the body. All they knew was it had been a young woman. A Jane Doe.”

“Then who’s Bella?” Trewlove asks. Miss Frazil has her pen to her notepad, scribbling madly away.

Fancy points at the wall. “A year after the bones were found, someone went and wrote that message on some buildings around the town. But no Bella had been reported missing. Turns out the bloke who wrote it was a crank just making a fuss for fun. It was a completely false lead.”

“Christ,” Strange sighs.

Fancy nods grimly. “It was in the papers and everything. Never solved. That’s why it scared me and my cousins so bad.” He furrows his brow at the window and folds his arms. “Only...”

“What?” Morse pushes.

“Only it’s supposed to be ‘Hagley’ Wood. That’s where they found her in Birmingham. Not the Bagley Wood here in Oxford.” The five of them reread the message, which clearly reads _Bagley Wood_.

“Someone’s gotten them mixed up, or changed it,” Frazil suggests. “Maybe for some local flavor. I’m not big on Hallowe’en myself, but perhaps it is a prank.”

Morse thinks that unlikely, but Strange tugs his sleeve and pulls him to the side, out of earshot of Miss Frazil, before he can say so.

“Remember that bloke last night reporting his sister missing?” Strange mutters. His brow is knit together in concern.

“Mr. Flynn,” Morse nods.

“Isn’t this the bakery she works at? His sister?”

Morse cranes his neck to read the swirling cursive painted on the window of the shop’s door— _Pat’s Pastries_ —and freezes. Tadhg, in his hurried frenzy to recount his own search for his sister, had indeed mentioned phoning into her job. Pat’s Pastries. A dreadful feeling settles in the pit of Morse’s stomach.

Without a second thought, he breaks from the crowd and beelines right for the entrance.

A gentle _ding-ding_ echoes in the near-empty bakery. There’s just one other man inside, middle aged and average height, presumably the disgruntled owner, dusting his hands off on a heavily-floured apron.

“Sign on the door says we’re closed,” he says, but Morse flashes his warrant card as he approaches the counter.

“DS Morse, Thames Valley Police.”

There’s a flicker of apology on the other man’s face, before it crumbles into agitation. “Took you lot long enough to get a detective over here. Know how expensive it’s going to be to replace that lettering on the window? I wanna know who did it so I can—”

“I’m sorry, sir,” Morse interrupts, “but I’m here about another matter. Does Miss Sinéad Flynn work here?”

The man’s demeanor immediately softens. “Sinéad? Is she alright?”

“She does work here?”

“Yeah, only she hasn’t been in the last couple days. She always calls out when she’s ill, so we thought there might’ve been an emergency. But then her brother phoned yesterday and we started getting worried. Has she turned up, yet?”

“We’re making some routine inquiries,” Morse replies flatly, thoughts already splitting off in several directions. “Someone will be in touch if the situation calls for it, and I’ll make sure someone follows up on the graffiti. Er, thank you for cooperating.”

He slips back out of the store, tunnel vision guiding him through the crowd.

“Morse, what is it?” Trewlove asks, but her concern falls on deaf ears.

“Fancy,” he says, brushing past her and Miss Frazil and rounding on the young constable. “Are you positive the original message said _Hagley_ Wood, with an H?”

“Yeah, positive.”

“What’s wrong, Morse?” Trewlove tries again.

“We need to go. I’ll explain on the way.”

He’d felt wrong in the moment, telling Tadhg Flynn there was nothing they could do for him or his sister. He, more than anyone, knows the frustrations and limitations of bureaucracy when pursuing the truth. He’d nearly been killed by it on several occasions. And now it might have put someone else in danger.

“Wait, Constable Fancy,” Frazil calls after them, “can I quote you for my story?”

Fancy spins around on his heel, but as he opens his mouth to answer, Morse cuts in with, “You can write “a Thames Valley Police officer on the scene,” no names or ranks. Good evening, Miss Frazil.”

The sun is hovering just below the horizon line, plunging the city streets into a pale violet glow. Lamps begin to flicker on as night falls around them. They turn a corner and the bakery is out of sight. It had almost been a perfectly normal day.

“Morse,” Strange starts, “care to explain what–”

“It’s bait,” he replies curtly, leading the others back out toward Cowley Road. “Someone’s taunting us.”

“Does this mean we’re not getting dinner?” Fancy asks.

“We’re going to work. Sinéad Flynn is now a high-risk missing person.”

***

The Bagley Wood is deafeningly loud at night. The city proper has its fair share of noise after a certain hour, but out here the cricket chirps and beetle clicks and frog songs surround them. Even the breeze plays its part, rushing through trees and sending fresh showers of leaves to the forest floor. In the distance, twigs snap with the same intensity as gunshots under the weight of unseen creatures, all obscured by the black night.

DCI Rose, the weekend-duty inspector, was not pleased to have his quiet evening interrupted by four off-duty officers building a missing person case out of an urban legend and circumstantial evidence; moreover, they were asking him to put boots on the ground for a blind search of hundreds of acres of woods.

After Morse had pushed his professional patience to the limit trying to explain the connections, Strange spoke to Rose alone in his office. When Rose finally emerged and begrudgingly granted them the search party, Strange once again winked at Morse over the DCI’s shoulder.

The sun had long since set when they arrived at the edge of the wood and began splitting up. Morse had insisted on searching on his own—to cover more ground—but was quickly paired off with Fancy.

Morse concludes that Fancy seems to be a city boy through and through, stumbling over tree roots and flinching at hooting owls every few dozen steps.

“Could this not have waited ‘til morning?” he asks, idly swinging his torch beam side to side, sometimes pointing it up at a looming branch.

“Right now, every second counts,” Morse answers stiffly. He catches his breath in his own torch light and shivers as the temperature continues to drop around them. “A girl’s life is on the line.”

“I get that, but I don’t see how much good we’re doing while we can’t see a bloody thing.”

“Well it would help if you keep your light in front of you and _on the path_.” _Path_ is a very generous word for the twisting route they’re taking. Trewlove had insisted that everyone take a police whistle —“Just in case,”—and Morse was forever grateful that she had at least a shred of foresight.

“You really reckon she’s out here?”

“We have to hope for the best.”

“That’s a non-answer, mate...You reckon her killer’s out here?”

Morse rolls his eyes. “Oh, she’s already dead, then? What did I just say about hoping for the best? How many scary stories did your uncle put in your head as a child?”

“It’s not totally out of the realm of possibility. Alright, maybe not _her_ killer, but maybe a–”

A harrowing shriek cuts through the air and stops them in their tracks, and though Morse recognizes it right away, it still sets his heart racing. Fancy nearly jumps out of his shoes beside him, latching onto his coat sleeve with an iron grip.

“It’s just a _fox_ , Fancy, get off me.” He jerks his arm away—perhaps with too much force—and Fancy loses his footing on the wet leaves and sinks straight down to the ground.

“ _Augh_ , Morse, I just bought these trousers,” he grumbles, holding himself up on his hands and knees. “The ground is _soaking wet_ , ugh—and it _reeks_ down here.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean for you to fall,” Morse says, leaning down. “Do you need a hand? You’re not hurt, are you?” Fancy is right about the smell—it’s horrid.

“No, no, I’ve got it.” He springs to his feet, making a show of wiping down his clothes, and heaves a great sigh. “Right, let’s see the damage. Shine your torch this way?”

Morse does. Then he drops the torch.

“ _God_ ,” he cries out.

“What? Morse, what?” Fancy’s voice pitches up in worry as Morse scrambles to pick up the torch, but his hands are shaking and his stomach is churning. Finally he gets a grip on the cold metal and directs the light back to Fancy.

His tan corduroy trousers are covered in dark red stains, almost black in some spots. The great display he’d made of wiping down his front left handprint-shaped streaks all across his rust-colored pullover. Streaks of rotting blood. He’s covered in blood.

Morse is speechless, but Fancy is not.

“Oh my _God_ ,” he gasps, first uselessly trying to brush the stains off, then holding his arms out as if to put distance between himself and the mess. “Morse, oh my _God_! It’s blood, it’s—what do I _do_?”

“Don’t move,” Morse says, flashing the light down to the ground. The leaves where Fancy fell are slick with blood—a _lot_ of it.

“Morse, help a bloke out, huh?” Fancy croaks, pulling his arms through his sleeves and stumbling through the mess of leaves and bramble and blood—

“Just–just _stay_ _there_ ,” Morse barks, throwing his free arm out to guide Fancy away from the scene. The more Fancy moves, the stronger the smell becomes, and the smell alone is enough to wrench a choking gag out of him.

“ _Eugh_!” Behind him, Fancy heaves his pullover to the ground, gasping for breath between hoarse coughs. “Disgusting!”

Morse stills his torch over a particularly shiny patch of leaves and squeezes his eyes shut.

“Perhaps it’s from an animal,” he says weakly, but no sooner have the words left his mouth than his light falls over a small leather handbag, soaked in blood. And next to it, glinting in the darkness, lies a bloody kitchen knife.

Fancy draws his shirtsleeve across his forehead, hands still darkened with blood. “Oh, Christ.”

It’s over an hour before Thursday and forensics make it out to the scene. By the time they arrive, Morse and the rest of them are shivering with the cold. But it only takes a few moments for one of the men to pull a wallet from the gorey mess and hand Thursday the passport tucked inside.

He lets out a heavy sigh before reading, “Sinéad I. Flynn.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CHARACTERS:  
> • Sinéad Flynn: missing person  
> • Tadhg Flynn: Sinéad's brother  
> • Órlaith MacNamara: Sinéad's cousin and housemate
> 
> The two-part fuel for this fire was 1) watching Buzzfeed Unsolved’s video on “Bella in the Wych Elm” and realizing that Hagley Wood rhymed with Bagley Wood, and 2) getting dummy good scores on my Irish lessons on DuoLingo.


End file.
